Climate Control Screen Plastic Deteriorating

[Guest]

***Mods feel free to delete this. I forgot I already posted about this a while back***

 

Got an odd issue with the Avensis. The centre climate control unit inside the car, the screen on this between the temperature dials has begun to crack up. 

Two hairline cracks on the bottom right started to appear, as well as a slight peel along the bottom right edge. The weeks after, they became more pronounced, the cracks are coming from the inside of the screen (the inside face of the clear transparent screen cover). More are appearing by the week. 

Logically, you'd think that something has physically hit this and cracked it. But I am 99% certain this never happened - honestly. There is no sign of impact either, such as scratches / a mess where an object would have hit it. 

It's bizarre. I'm not sure what is causing it, unless someone has hit it and I don't know, or I've done it without realising but I really don't believe this has happened. 

I took it to Toyota, they said it looks like physical damage and they wouldn't even put the request through as this is how it would seem to the claims department. And sure enough, it would look that way. I mostly wanted to know if this was some common issue they might have known about. Apparently not. I haven't seen it on any other Avensis either. 

The unit is something like £980 - they don't sell parts like this. Nor is it really made to be replaced. But it was put together by someone at some stage, so my plan is to find a used or broken unit with this piece in tact and take it apart carefully, harvest the plastic and put it on to my unit. Is this feasible? Any other good ideas to try to fix it?

[Guest]

Pictures of the problem 

[avensis_2018]

Stick something on it's side, toyota/avensis small decal insted of replace all this part.

[Guest]

Some very good news to add to this. READ IF YOU HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM

Although at first attempt my local dealer said "No, it appears to clearly be damaged", yesterday in an actual booked-in inspection they agreed to replace the unit under warranty. This was following a message to Toyota UK on Facebook who opened a case (much easier than being on hold on the phone for up to an hour). 

I prepared and printed out a couple of pages. One showed a timeline of my climate control screen as in the background of various photos I took of my cars interior from the day I first looked at the car to frequent cleaning / trying out new cleaning products and cloths. I'd often send a friend a pic of a before and after etc (don't worry - he's as into cars and cleaning them so it's not as boring as it sounds!).  Thankfully these photos saved me, as you could see the initial 'spec', turning into a 3mm hairline line, then a crack on the inside, then others sporadically appearing over the months. And then recently, getting very bad to where the now deep cracks appear to be 'lifting' out toward you and pulling up the screen. This was the first part.

 

The second part was that I looked at all 68 used Avensis models on AutoTrader on Monday evening. Over half of them had the same issue. Either the plastic was missing from wear or failing of the thin plastic matt finish material that goes over the hard plastic. OR, in some cases cracks along the screen similar to mine. A few had very , very bad cracking identical to mine across the entire screen. This was a good enough basis for me to prove that it was not in fact (a) a one off damage by me, (b) the problem is apparent in other Avensis model - it's unlikely that every single one happened to have a 'smack' to the same intensity / focus area as mine. 

 

So that's it, agreed to be fixed under warranty. It expires 5th September. even if it goes another 5 years before similar cracking then it'll be an old car and not such a big issue to live with 🙂  That's £1,189 on the invoice, £0.00 payable. 

 

Any of you - and I'm aware that it's a tiny fraction left - with last Avensis models rolling off the line in August 2018 like mine - that will soon be expiring on the 5 year warranty - Should go now and log the claim now and try to get this replaced. It appears that with the right evidence they will honour a claim. I'm happy to privately send you my case number an a copy of the document I put together to assist. 

 

This very much increases my loyalty to Toyota. In contrast to a friend whose just been shafted by Hyundai on their fancy '7 year warranty' on a genuinely engine-stopping issue, really shows the difference of a mature, reputable and competent car manufacturer that owners can reasonably depend on. 

[Bper]

Hi Shane,

Obviously an expensive fix if the car is out of warranty or drivers not  being aware that this is a common problem with this model. Credit to you for pursuing this and bringing to the attention of others who may not be aware of this plastic cracking and to Toyota for replacement.👍

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Bper said:

Hi Shane,

Obviously an expensive fix if the car is out of warranty or drivers not  being aware that this is a common problem with this model. Credit to you for pursuing this and bringing to the attention of others who may not be aware of this plastic cracking and to Toyota for replacement.👍

Thanks!  Definitely keen to share any and every experience of owning the car on the basis that somebody down the line might find it useful - even if I end up writing paragraphs for much of it! 

 

Toyota seems genuinely interested in understanding these things as well. It's nice to see that trickle down to the customer experience in a way that benefits me.

 

I'd say anybody recently out of warranty *might* just be able to scrape one as my DS3 was over a year out of warranty and although initially the dealer said no / out of warranty, once I made the case that corroding alloys were a wider issue (got them to admit / agree) and then got them to admit that alloy wheels should last the lifetime of the car (they agreed), they then said it was a result of damage from wear and tear. I proved to them that it wasn't as the edges were perfectly fine, as was the rest of the cars body / no damage. That was enough for them to give me four new alloys out of warranty.  It was a few attempts and a lot of waiting on hold, but Toyota *might* do the same for anyone like myself who has invested in their car a lot, truly wants it to be as 'perfect' as a real world daily use car can be.  Maybe if they quote my case number / document it could be put through.  Or maybe they'll cling to 'out of warranty, out of luck' - but either way, happy to provide the info if anyone PMs me I'll share the details 🙂 Worth a shot, that's my attitude to all of this. Took me an hour to do that little document, £10.80 to print at a local library (rip off!!!) but I reckon it paid off.